CHICAGO-Houston-based industrial private equity firm Trident Equity Partners LLC is merging into locally-based Brennan Investment Group, a firm that former First Industrial Realty Trust president and CEO Mike Brennan started in October 2009. The principals at Trident will operate under the Brennan name and will focus their efforts in the major markets of Texas, Arizona and Colorado.

Brennan said in a statement that his strategy, both nationally and in Texas, is to acquire a portfolio of stable, well-leased assets along with distressed or value-added properties that will provide both a current yield as well as significant potential for capital appreciation over a two- to five-year period. Assets will include dock high warehouses, manufacturing buildings and grade-level service center buildings primarily of tiltwall construction, he said. The company focuses primarily on properties in the markets of Chicago, central Florida, northern New Jersey, southern California, Texas and Washington, DC.

The Trident principals are Troy MacMane, Tod Greenwood and Allen Crosswell. Prior to forming Trident, MacMane had run First Industrial’s acquisition and development business in the southern portion of Texas. He was also responsible for managing and leasing the REIT’s portfolio of more than 300 tenants consisting of more than 10 million square feet with a staff of 15 people.

He says the key to success in this buying cycle lie more in buying the correct assets with accurate risk assessment, disciplined underwriting standards, and quality operations, as opposed to trying to ‘pick’ the absolute bottom. “The industrial market is in a good position,” MacMane tells GlobeSt.com. “Demand and liquidity are coming back. It’s a lot better than it was nine months ago, when brokers were trying to decide I they should wait tables on the side.”